Started in his garage in 1970, Gordon Wilkinson’s repair business fixed old record players, reel-reels and radios. He even started making speakers too.. He quickly out grew the garage and needed some shop premises and therefore in 1971, Gordon bought the 55 Netherfield Rd shop in Nelson, next to what was then Holts Jewellers shop on the corner. He took on a salesman to allow him to start selling new equipment too. LG, Lenco, and as the first JVC equipment came into the UK, (then Nivico), he took the brand on and that proved to be such a great decision.
In 1977, the house next door became available (no 57 Railway st), allowing us to create a custom demonstration room and expanded workshop facilities.. allowing the storage of much more equipment, boxes and old spares..
At this point Andrew & David , as young boys, started to take an interest… and would be seen learning the trade , after school, and on Saturdays.
With the clearance of the Netherfield ward of Nelson in 1984, 55&57 Netherfield rd were compulsory purchased along with ~300 other terraced properties in a massive clearance. The current 92 Manchester rd premises were bought and renovated throughout the summer by Gordon…
Andrew had by then just finished his engineering OND/HNC ran the shop full time until the move across town in August.
The new shop opened on 29th August 1984. In addition to Hi-fi, we then began selling TV’s , Video’s & Camcorders.
In 1986 David finished college and joined the business and along with our mother, the whole family were involved in running our little empire.
Growth was rapid and when the adjacent shop became available 5 years later in 1989, (the former ‘Castle TV’ shop), the business expanded to cover both shops….where it remains to this day. This also houses our ‘JVC’ museum. This has been built up over the years, a passion of ours, with rare examples of JVC early products going back to the 1960s…when JVC was called ‘Nivico’.
In 1995 , the glory years of our trade, we were so busy that we took on Brian full time. He had worked in the shop on Saturdays since the late 70s and knew all the customers by name.. He retired in 2012/13 although he still comes in and keeps up with the gossip.
In 2002, wholesale improvement of the ‘St Marys’ conservation area of Nelson meant we were able to renovate the shop exterior… re-roofed the shop… and built additional rooms and a loading bay to the rear along with a lift inside permitting us to lift those heavy glass TV’s up to the 2nd floor workshops.
As the rise of the internet and the advent of online shopping started to grow… we were left somewhat , as all older businesses were, in the doldrums, unable to compete with the biggest 20 or so dealers in the country , who were battling hard with each other to sell volume at discount prices to the masses.
This , along with the credit crunch/ recession saw many of our competitors, like us, small businesses, go out of business..
We survived by sticking to what was by then becoming a more rare service… offering the repair on the old equipment.
For a time, we too, took on selling white goods and appliances for a couple of years, until the recession ended and the return of the vinyl records popularity saw the demand for Hifi recover and we cleared the shelves of fridges to return to just specialising in Hifi alone.
At this time we too learnt how to get on the internet… and this site is the continued development of 8 years work now….
Google one day started to send traffic to our site… and having understood how important it is to have a site, we have nurtured and improved it month by month ever since… Our customers now come from all across the UK… and as far afield as Israel and the US for our specialist Linn repair services.
After the recession, Business was busy enough to need extra staff, so we expanded and now have extra experienced staff..some on sales, others in the workshops. The building is still in full use with demonstration rooms, workshops, stores etc.
Sadly , Gordon Wilkinson , the company founder passed away after a long retirement and a long illness. The business passed fully to his 2 sons who continued to forge ahead with the business ethic he instilled all those years ago. We had both been involved with the shop since our early childhood, fulltime from the mid 80s, so it was natural progression.
We ourselves each have spent 45+ of the 53 years working here…. and with a little luck, David’s son may one day be able to take up the mantle of the 3rd generation of Wilkinson’s to run the shop. It will be a tough challenge. At one time nearly every town had a Hifi shop. Now they are vanishingly rare.
There are however a very specific set of skills needed to be the best in the field we chose. We were later into the electrical business than many of the then ‘TV shops’ , but now that so many of these have closed/retired, it leaves us in a unique position to use the knowledge we have in all aspects of our Hi-Fi subject, from selling to repairing.
Worthy of note: Stuart joined us in 2015 at the end of the last recession. Himself a long time employee working in a number of electrical stores and finding himself redundant with the closure of Comet, he joined what was even then a unique shop. We had survived the recession by focussing on value hifi equipment and on hifi repairs. We were also at that time selling a wider range of electricals than just white goods, having acquired Nelsons ‘Hartleys electricals’ when their premises were no longer available and couldn’t continue.
For the next 9 years Stuart took us on a journey across dozens of Hi-fi brands we had never dreamed we’d be stocking and selling products right across the range and into the thousands. I have to admit that this pushed us out of our comfort zone at times, but Stuart had his passion for Hi-Fi, was well read on all the magazines and the brand choices that were made proved to be some of the best decisions we ever made. Enjoy your retirement Stuart…Chapeau.
